Warp printing method



p 1967 J. DE WITTE 3,343,242

FIGJ

INVENTOR.

- JACQUES DE WITTE I BY KMFF {MM AGENTS United States Patent Ofifice 3,343,242 WARP PRINTING METHOD Jacques De Witte, 30 Rue aux Loups, Courtrai, Belgium Filed Oct. 22, 1965, Ser. No. 501,024 Claims priority, applicazign Belgium, Oct. 29, 1964,

6 Claims. (c1. 2872.6)

ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE the imprinted warp is dried, and the warp is wound in preparation for weaving a warp backed fabric.

The present invention relates to a method of machine printing a design on a warp for a warp backed fabric, such as terry cloth, and to the printed warp produced thereby.

As is known, terry cloth is a cotton fabric used for towels, wash cloths, bath mats, etc., and having a loop pile on one or two sides of a filling. Two warps are used, one to form the pile loops and the other to interlace with the filling to form the ground.

Heretofore, no commercially useful method has been known for imprinting a design on such warps in otherwise conventional machine or roller printing operations such as described in the Man-Made Textile Encyclopedia, Textile Book Publishers, Inc., New York, 1959, pages 595-597. Such operations presuppose that the warp threads be held in place during the printing but this necessitates inserting a filling transversely of the warp threads to hold the latter in juxtaposed position. However, the filling must be removed before the warp is used for weaving the terry cloth but manual removal of the weft threads is too cumbersome and also is likely to disturb the warp threads, making a commercial operation impossible. If no weft is used to hold the warp threads in position during printing, on the other hand, some of the warp threads will be caught in the printing machine and will break while others may become intertwined, thus making a proper design imprint impossible.

For these reasons, colored designs in terry cloth have been produced either by hand painting or by using colored warp threads.

It is the primary object of the present invention to overcome the above and other disadvantages, and to make machine printing of warps for warp backed fabrics commercially feasible.

Since the weaving of terry cloth with warps of a plurality of juxtaposed threads and the machine printing of fabrics are well known, and form no part of this invention, except in combination with the novel preparation of the warp for printing, they will not be described in detail herein. In machine printing operations, colored designs are printed on a cloth by feeding the cloth through the nips between a cylinder and a series of rolls each engraved with its portion of the total design and picking up a desired color from a color box. The cylinder usually carries a wool lapping and a blanket is placed between the cylinder and the cloth to provide the springiness necessary for sharp designs. After printing, the cloth is dried and subjected to a series of after treatments necessary properly to set the printed design in the cloth, the cloth being finally thoroughly washed in a soap bath, all in accordance with well known textile printing procedures 3,343,242 Patented Sept. 26, 1967 exemplified by the description in the above-named publication.

In accordance with this invention, a weft consisting of soluble filaments is inserted in the warp whereby a loose web is formed and the loose Web is temporarily bonded to the blanket with a soluble adhesive while being imprinted.

The term soluble used throughout the specification and claims to describe the weft and the adhesive indicates solubility in an aqueous medium which does not attack the warp threads and, more particularly, in a conventional scouring bath used in the after-treatment of printed textiles.

While the invention is useful with any type of warp threads, terry cloth is usually made of cotton. Useful soluble materials for the weft and the adhesive have been found to be alginates, calcium alginate being the preferred material for the weft and sodium alginate for the adhesive.

In the accompanying drawing,

FIG. 1 is a fragmentary plan view of an imprinted warp bonded to a blanket; and

FIG. 2 is a fragmentary plan view showing a terry cloth woven from the warp of FIG. 1.

In FIG. 1, the warp juxtaposed warp threads are designated 1 and the spaced weft filaments 2 are shown to hold the warp threads against displacement. The resultant loose web 3 is bonded to blanket 4 on which the loose web is carried between the nips of a cylinder and printing rollers of a textile printing machine. The multi-colored design imprinted on the web is shown at 5. FIG. 2 shows one side of a terry cloth carrying the imprinted warp 3 in the form of a loop pile 3', the design 5 of the warp forming the desired design 5' on the loop pile.

The loose Web 3 is formed on a loom by inserting the soluble weft filaments 2, for example about an inch or less apart. However, actual experiments have shown that the printed design remains perfect, i.e. the warp threads remain in position, if the temporary weft is spaced as much as about two inches apart.

When the weft is made of calcium alginate, an alkaline aqueous scouring bath at a temperature of about 50 C. will completely remove the weft.

Before the printing operation starts, the loose web 3 is bonded to the blanket 4 with sodium alginate, for instance, thus-permitting a perfect imprint on the web as it passes through the printing machine on the blanket.

As is known, the printed goods are dried and usually cooled immediately to prevent print degradation. They are then aged or steamed to fix the imprinted colored design on the warp threads by heat, and finally they are thoroughly washed to remove loosely adhering color and the thickeners, chemicals and other agent present so that crock fastness will be satisfactory. In addition, the long thorough soaping in the scouring bath will brighten many shades. Simultaneously and without doing anything beyond the conventional afterprinting treatment, the soap bath will automatically dissolve and thus remove the weft, leaving the printed warp ready for drying and winding in preparation for weaving of the warp backed fabric.

Since the alginate weft and adhesive have been completely removed from the warp, the cotton warp in the woven terry cloth will be capable of exerting its full absorbency, carrying no trace of non-absorbent material. On the other hand, the temporary weft and adhesive used during the machine printing of the warp are removed without any extra work, thus making the process highly economical.

Merely by way of example, I have successfully produced a cotton terry cloth whose loop piles were imprinted with sharply defined designs of roses of three shades of pink and green leaves in the following manner:

A warp of 22 cotton threads was formed on a loom and calcium alginate filaments of 100 denier were inserted at spacings about three quarters of an inch to form a loose web. The loose web was bonded to the blanket of a conventional multicolor roller print machine with a thin layer of sodium alginate and was thus passed through the machine to receive the printed designs from a series of engraved rolls applying the different shades of pink and the green design to the warp. The imprinted warp was dried and then rapidly aged with saturated steam for about five minutes. The warp was then subjected to scouring for five minutes in an aqueous bath containing about two parts by weight of soap, two parts by weight of a surface active agent and two parts by weight of trisodium phosphate. In this bath, the alginate adhesive and weft were dissolved so that the imprinted cotton warp left the bath detached from the blanket and carrying no foreign substances. The warp. was then dried and wound on a warp beam.

While the invention has been described in connection with certain preferred embodiments, it will be clearly understood that various modifications may occur to those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and scope thereof, as defined in the appended claims.

What I claim is:

1. A method of machine printing a design on a warp for a warp backed fabric, comprising the steps of (a) forming a warp of a plurality of threads,

(b) inserting a weft consisting of soluble filaments in the warp (1) whereby a loose web is formed,

(c) bonding the loose web temporarily to a blanket with a soluble adhesive,

((1) imprinting the loose web with the design while bonded to the blanket,

(e) drying and fixing the imprinted design on the loose web,

(f) rinsing and washing the loose web in a soap bath capable of dissolving the adhesive and the soluble weft filaments,

(g) drying the imprinted warp, and

(h) winding the warp in preparation for weaving the warp backed fabric.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the threads are of cotton.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the soluble filaments are of calcium alginate.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the loose web is rinsed and washed in an alkaline aqueous bath of a temperature of about C.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the loose web is bonded to the blanket with sodium alginate.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the soluble filaments of the weft are inserted in the warp at spacings of about 2-3 cm.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,348,230 5/1944 Spielmann 28-72.6 2,898,664 8/1959 Salem 28-76 2,898,665 8/1959 Salem et al 2876 MERVIN STEIN, Primary Examiner.

L. RIMRODT, Assistant Examiner. 

1. A METHOD OF MACHINE PRINTING A DESIGN ON A WRAP FOR A WARP BACKED FABRIC, COMPRISING THE STEPS OF (A) FORMING A WARP OF A PLURALITY OF THREADS, (B) INSERTING A WEFT CONSISTING OF SOLUBLE FIALMENTS IN THE WARP (1) WHEREBY A LOOSE WEB IS FORMED, 